INFINITE STORM

 Naomi Watts     Billie Howle     Denis O’Hare

            You will get chilled and exhausted as you watch this 127 Hours (Danny Boyle) type of thriller about a rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Pam Bales (Watts) heads out for a day of hiking carefree.  Her friend notes that a storm is coming, and shouldn’t she stay home?  No, she treasures her time in the mountain wilderness for the healing she experiences after the heartbreaking losses in her life.  It’s a time when she can feel free.

            Pam notices when it starts thundering and snowing, but she keeps going undeterred until she realizes a blizzard is mounting, and she heads back down.  She has to pause from time to time, and experiences real terror when she falls into a deep hole.  Now and then she thinks she hears voices and even blows her whistle but gets no response. Then, she spots sneaker prints in the snow and soon comes upon a figure sitting on the edge of a mountain.  He is mostly unresponsive, so she says she will call him ‘John’ and assures him she is from Search and Rescue.  It’s clear from watching her that she knows what she is doing, and fortunately she had packed extra supplies in her backpack.  How the man is dressed is puzzling; he is wearing sneakers and casual clothes.

            Pam is able to rouse him and warm up his body; but there is something besides his clothing that is strange to behold.  He is very uncooperative, and on their descent when times get tough, he tells her, “I can’t do it!”  This is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the movie—someone who does not want to be rescued and consequently puts both him and his rescuer in danger.

            At times, the viewer will get disgusted when he behaves so childishly as a grown man.  Come to think of it, most children would put him to shame.  You wonder at her persistence in continually goading him when he clearly wants to sit and die.  He can’t inch his way on a log over a stream without falling in the water below.

            Naomi Watts is at her best in going about her business with determination.  (Kudos to her and the filmmakers for realistically showing the aging, stresses and strains in her face when she is normally seen as a beauty.)  We learn at the end of the film what is behind her determination, and where it might not have made sense before, it does now.  Watts is a treasured actor (King Kong, Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams, Birdmen) generally admired for her skills, and she shows “true grit” in this particular role where she must act as a therapist out in the brutal elements.  Billie Howle does a commendable job, albeit in an unadmirable role.

            Lorne Balfe’s music provides needed relief during the numerous tense moments of Infinite Storm, and Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography captures the brilliant snowy mountain landscape in a way that enhances the emotionality.  Polish female director, Malgorzata Szumowska (Never Gonna Snow Again), has won numerous awards in Europe, but is relatively new to the U.S. scene.  Screenwriter Joshua Rollins based the plot on the real-life experience of Pam Bales, a nurse whose story was recounted in a Reader’s Digestarticle by Ty Gagne.  

 

Dramatization of a heroic rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire by a mother/nurse/mountain guide.

 

Grade:  B+                            By Donna R. Copeland

LUCE

Naomi Watts     Tim Roth     Kelvin Harrison, Jr.    Octavia Spencer

Norbert Leo Butz     Andrea Bang     Astro     Noah Gaynor

     Complexity is an understatement in this film about weighty topics ranging from race, privacy, security, trust, secrets, and communications that are misread because of listeners’ presumptions and conscious or unconscious wishes.  Luce’s strength is in illustrating how much anxiety and pain come to bear when there are no easy answers.  It’s a story that is worthy of much discussion after the movie among those genuinely moved by the events depicted.

     Initially, the Edgar family seems so admirably ideal.  Amy (Watts) and Peter (Roth) adopted a 10 year-old survivor of abuse and former child soldier in African Eretrea, and seem to have brought up a black-skinned child with all the privileges typical of privileged white children.  Named ‘Luce” (meaning “light”), the child is so gifted, personable, and emotionally balanced, he arouses expectations of fame, not only from his parents, but teachers and even other students—which, ironically, becomes a burden to him when he sees how favorably he is treated compared to fellow classmates. 

     In high school, Luce has a diverse group of friends and easily recognizes the bias with which some are treated, while he is excused.  He has a highly ambivalent relationship with his favorite teacher, Miss Wilson (Spencer), who is one of those who, he feels, expect him to be perfect.  He and the history teacher have sparring sessions fraught with a mixture of respect, overt politeness, and outright barbs.  It’s hard for the viewer to sort out the truths in this relationship, just as it is for the protagonists.  In a clever bit of script writing, the two people at different times make the statement, “Unfair doesn’t make it untrue.”

     During the course of the drama, we learn more about the Edgars’ conflicts with each other and between them and Luce.  It’s clear that husband and wife differ in their relationships with Luce.  As best as she tries to keep her private life confidential, Miss Wilson’s family history is exposed in a most unsettling way.  Luce’s diverse group of friends provides further intrigue and muddying of the waters.

     This production, directed by Julius Onah and co-written with J. C. Lee is fascinating in its grasp of contemporary issues that are not easily sorted out, all while being engrossing and entertaining.  Kelvin Harrison, Jr., as Luce performs expertly, portraying a character a bit too facile in his explanations and studied politeness.  However, at 25, he just can’t be convincing as a high school teenager.  (My ongoing gripe is the casting of young adults to play teenagers when there is an abundance of qualified younger actors in that age range.  Age discrepancy is highly disconcerting to those of us well acquainted with teenagers.  All of the “teens” in this film are in their mid-twenties, and one is 30 years old.)

     Octavia Spence is one actor continually worthy of praise.  She has recently branched out into roles where the character is a mix-up of good and bad qualities (e.g., Ma), all captivating, and highlighting her ability to portray conflicting personality characteristics.  Naomi Watts and Tim Roth also have nuanced performances that are convincing as real people going through major self-exploration and adaptation.  

     Julius Onah is early in his career as director and producer (this is only his second full feature film), and with Luce, he shows promise as a sensitive filmmaker knowledgeable about human frailties and strengths, and expert in storytelling.  Contributing to the quality of Luce are writer J. C. Lee, musicians Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, and cinematographer Larkin Seiple.  

Combining mystery, intrigue, and entertainment with topical issues of race and privilege, Luce challenges viewers to question what is truth in the story and ways in which our own biases may come into play.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE GLASS CASTLE

Brie Larson   Woody Harrelson   Naomi Watts   Max Greenfield

     Spending two hours with a majorly dysfunctional family is a real slog.  The Glass Castle is about a family headed by a man who was abused as a child and developed views about how the world should be, imposing a chaotic lifestyle on his family in search of a dream (glass castle) that will never come to fruition.  He can be a real a-hole.  But the kicker is that the viewer is never given any evidence that anyone is standing up to this man, Rex (Harrelson), there is no “come to Jesus” moment for him, and yet we’re supposed to forgive him in the very last minutes of the film when his family has only warm memories of him.  Really??!!

     The actors are the best part of The Glass Castle.  Brie Larson and the younger actresses playing her as Jeannette (Ella Anderson, Chandler Head) all perform admirably, being entirely convincing as the “parent child” who performs her parents’ jobs, is emotionally the closest to her father, and shows disillusionment every step of the way.  Woody Harrelson playing the father Rex can as an actor be riveting as a good guy (The Messenger), a bad guy (War for the Planet of the Apes), a complex guy (TV’s “True Detective”), or a comic (Wildcats); here, he is a chain-smoking alcoholic control freak with unconventional ideas about life and a violent temper to boot.  Naomi Watts as Rose Mary, the simpering mother of the family, helps us see very well the dilemma of an abused wife of an alcoholic, always excusing, and never able to assert herself and pursue her own dreams. 

     The Glass Castle is based on the memoir of Jeannette Walls, which was on the New York Times Best Seller List and received multiple awards.  It’s a complicated story of a girl who grew up in a family in which the parents were determinably unconventional, constantly moved around the country, kept their children close, and hadn’t the foggiest notion about good parenting.  The book should be ripe for a really fine movie rendition; unfortunately, the screenplay by director Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham does not live up to that promise.

     Although the actors perform superbly, the screenplay lets them down in plodding through most of the two hours highlighting incompetence and poor judgment.  Yes, we get that in about a half hour.  How about using the rest of the time showing more about how the two older sisters were able to move on, more about Jeannette’s relationship with her husband, and—if it really happened—events that brought Rex and Rose Mary around so that the children could (convincingly) have a rewarding Thanksgiving celebration later?

     In other words, this film should have had a better last act that showed events proceeding logically (in terms of human behavior) from eccentricity and mistreatment of children to redemption.

Unless you suspend logic and realism, and don’t mind frustration, The Glass Castle is not likely to make sense.

Grade:  D                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE BOOK OF HENRY

Naomi Watts   Jaeden Lieberher   Jacob Tremblay   Sarah Silverman   Dean Norris   Maddie Ziegler   Lee Pace

      This is a very different version of the single mother bringing up two boys on her own than we usually see—either in real life or in the movies.  Susan (Watts) is unconventional in her being consistently late in picking up her boys from school, whistling to them from the car, playing videogames, and so on; but she is quite conventional in her “good mother” role of warmth and nurturance and being able to play and have fun with her kids—the more important things, really.

     Henry (Lieberher, previously in Midnight Special) is a very (unbelievably, maybe?) precocious child who not only knows more facts than most adults, but reasons at an adult level.  In addition, he has a keen sense of fairness and ethical principles.  He’s not obnoxious, though, because he’s so sincere and thoughtful of others.  His younger brother Peter (Tremblay, previously in Room) is a great counterpart in his sweetness, but it’s nice to see his spunk and competitiveness with his older brother. 

      So this family is tumbling through life, mostly enjoying it, and trying to be helpful to others.  Susan has a co-worker at a coffee shop (Silverman), who clearly needs her support.  Henry has to rescue his brother from bullies at school.  But what puts the intrigue of the story in motion is Henry’s observation of his schoolmate Christina (Ziegler) next door with her stepfather, Mr. Sickleman (Norris), the city’s police commissioner.  From what Henry can glean from his online searches and books, Christina is suffering from abuse.  There has already been an incident in the grocery store observed by Henry and his mother, where a man was being abusive to a woman, and Susan advises Henry not to try to intervene by telling him, “It’s not our business”; it could provoke more violence.  But Henry is not convinced, saying that apathy, not violence, is the worst thing in the world.  He then proceeds to devise a plan whereby Christina can be rescued.

      Something happens, and Henry cannot enact his plan, but he has given Susan the most detailed instructions as to how she can see to it that Christina gets the help she needs.  This is the action of the story, filled with suspense, and keeping the audience on edge.

Director Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World, Safety Not Guaranteed) knows very well how to direct movies with drama that have some thrill to them.  His team of Michael Giacchino (music) and John Schwartzman (cinematographer), along with others, add measurably to the production. 

      Although the script is very good in terms of entertainment and capturing the imagination, I think Gregg Hurwitz made a mistake in putting adult words and concepts into a child’s role, and making him, in psychology parlance, a “parent child.”  This doesn’t usually work out so well in real life as it does in this film.  The script is also weakened by the gaps in Henry’s story.  I can’t say more, but that was jarring to me.  On the other hand, the insertion of precursors like Susan’s whistle, her penchant for videogames, and Henry’s class report on legacy are clever in their prescience.

      Naomi Watts is a solid performer who consistently gets good reviews, and she deserves it as well for her work here.  She’s such a natural in relating to children, and her tremulous standing up to Mr. Sickleman is outstanding.  To be commended are the two boys playing her sons, Jaeden Lieberher and Jacob Tremblay.  They seem to understand intuitively what is called for, and they produce it naturally.  Dean Norris knows very well how to play the villain (“Under the Dome” and other TV series), and his portrayal of the bully and reactions of surprise and concern ripple through his face so tellingly.  I’m not sure why the Silverman character was included; although she played her part very well, the character seemed extraneous to me.

     Although I liked The Book of Henry in many ways (directing, music, cinematography, actors, entertainment), there are parts of it that seem over the top.  For instance, I mentioned the portrayal of children.  The most galling was catapulting poor Henry (basically, a wonderful boy) back in the traditional role of a dominant husband over a submissive wife.  “I must tell you exactly what to do and you must follow my instructions implicitly.”  “Pay attention to our finances!  You don’t even know what we are worth.  I’ve made all this money so you don’t have to work any more.”

      This movie will be applauded by those taken in by the romantic story that children can be as wise as adults, but don’t you believe it.  Even the writer of this script hedged on that.

An entertaining—even exciting—movie, if you don’t think too hard.

Grade:  C+                          By Donna R. Copeland

CHUCK

Liev Schreiber     Elisabeth Moss     Naomi Watts     Ron Perlman     Jim Gaffigan     Morgan Spector     Pooch Hall

     The story of Chuck is not much different from so many other sad boxing tales in the movies (e.g., The Fighter, Hands of Stone, Raging Bull) in which the fighter comes from humble origins, doesn’t mind getting hit, is persistent against all odds, gets bruised and bloodied in the ring, indulges in self-inflated trash talk, and after he has a success or two gets into serious trouble that threatens his career and destroys his family.  In fact, the fighter in Chuck, Chuck Wepner, is the real person on which the character in the movie Rocky is based. 

     Chuck (Schreiber) has such a reputation for getting beat up in the ring, his nickname is the “Bayonne [New Jersey] Bleeder.”  He never shows pain, and when his wife worries about him or his daughter draws a picture of his battered face, his response is always, “I don’t mind getting hit.”  Chuck’s wife Phyliss, beautifully played by the talented Elisabeth Moss, is supportive, comforting, and a good sport; that is, except in cases where his flirtatiousness exceeds the limits of her tolerance.

     Everyone gets excited when Chuck’s trainer (Perlman) informs him that Don King, the influential boxing promoter, wants Muhammad Ali to fight a “white guy” at the world championship.  Chuck has won enough rounds with other fighters that he is considered and finally chosen to be that guy.  That’s enough to get his name on the map, because after the fight went through more rounds than was expected, Chuck became famous. 

     Thereafter, the story grows dark as Chuck has hopes of starring in Sylvester Stallone’s second Rocky picture.  (The first one was based on Chuck’s life, and even though he recognizes that it is actually the story of his life, he simply enjoys the compliment).  But by this time nightlife has done him in, and he fails to succeed in the audition.  He ends up being arrested for drug trafficking, and goes to prison.  That’s not the end of the story for Chuck, though.

     The script and the direction of this film by Philippe Falardeau is well done, and the acting by Schreiber, Moss, Perlman, and Watts is especially good.  Watts doesn’t really figure in until toward the end of the story, so in the interest of not being a spoiler, I won’t go into that.  I will say that the film could have done a better job of folding her character into the plot early on so that what finally transpires is more plausible.

     This seems to be a case where the movie is well done by all concerned, but because there have been so many predecessors telling the same tale, Chuck doesn’t have the punch (pun intended) to wow us as it may have intended.

Yes, another film about boxing, with the hero replicating his predecessors.

Grade:  C                        By Donna R. Copeland

DEMOLITION

Jake Gyllenhaal     Naomi Watts     Chris Cooper     Judah Lewis     Heather Lind

        Jake Gyllenhaal is a master at doing crazy (as in Nightcrawler and Prisoners), and so in Demolition as Davis, a man who is not equipped to deal with the death of his wife, he achieves another stunning performance.  Demolition is a psychological study of the grieving process in someone who is alienated from his emotions and therefore lacking empathy for others’ feelings.

      When his wife Julia (Lind) dies in a car accident (she, driving and he, a passenger), Davis exhibits little outward emotion, although we can imagine he is hurting inside when we’re shown his associations and memories of her.  Although he’s not particularly close to his father-in-law (Cooper), they work together, and Davis remembers an observation Phil made at one time.  It had to do with healing the heart, and how one must take it all apart and put it back together in order to heal.

       Davis takes this literally as well as metaphorically, and begins to do just that, first with the refrigerator his wife had told him was leaking in their last conversation, and gradually the urge to demolish more and more things increases.  He is rather compulsive, so is always interested in doing a thorough job.

       This quality surfaces immediately at the hospital in the intensive care unit, where he tries to buy some M&Ms from a vending machine, but the package gets stuck on the way down.  He takes a picture of the machine number, and proceeds to write the company for a refund.  But he doesn’t stick to the matter at hand, he writes his life history in letter after letter.  Of course, this comes to the attention of the Customer Care service woman, Karen (Watts).  She herself is rather kooky, and her son Chris (Lewis) is an astute, lonely kid.

      The connection made between Davis and Karen is one that makes you think of the belief that things happen for a reason or that people become attracted to one another to fill unconscious needs.  At any rate, even though they appear not to have much in common at all, they strike up a friendship, which means that Davis and Chris spend a fair amount of time together.  Interestingly, regressive experiences back to childhood link Davis and Karen together, and allows Davis to provide the kind of male understanding that Chris needs—not that everything that happens is sensible, but it does seem to be therapeutic.

     Director Jean-Marc Vallee has previously demonstrated his keen understanding of human psychological make-up and development in Wild and Dallas Buyers Club; and in Demolition with the writer Bryan Sipe, he shows how creative people are in getting their needs met and doing what they need to do to heal.  This is sometimes a painstaking process and not always one that makes conventional sense.  One of the many things I like about his work is how true to life it is, and how it demonstrates surprisingly effective ways in which we heal ourselves.  Humanity always reigns supreme in his work.

     I’ve mentioned how Gyllenhaal absolutely knew, understood, and portrayed the character of Davis, and Naomi Watts and Chris Cooper are right on target with their roles.  Watts is a natural for females who seem neurotic, but are actually stalwart (Birdman).  Cooper is versatile in a variety of roles he has played in American Beauty, Adaptaion, Lone Star, August:  Osage County, and Breach; here, he combines an aggressive Wall Street trader and a tender-hearted father.  The young actor Lewis captures the persona of a troubled teenager who is desperately looking for assistance in constructing his identity.  Guidance in the form of deconstruction (demolition) comes from an unlikely source, that of the troubled Davis.

Demolition, a film for the psychologically minded.

Grade:  A                         By Donna R. Copeland

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG

--> Naomi Watts     Ben Stiller     Adam Driver     Amanda Seyfried     Charles Grodin     Peter Yarrow

-->

While We’re Young deals with the time when aging starts to get personal—personally meaningful.  Josh (Stiller) and Cornelia (Watts) are there and get side-tracked by a younger couple, Jamie (Driver) and Darby (Seyfried) whose lives seem so exciting, unlike another couple whom they’ve been friends with for years, who just had a baby.  Josh and Cornelia discuss how free they feel and lucky to start hanging out with the younger set interested in so many things—hip hop, mystical evenings with a shaman, bicycling, woodwork, music on vinyl, and so on.  Best of all, it seems, Jamie aspires to be a documentarian just like Josh and his famous father-in-law Leslie Breitbart (Grodin). 

      Josh has always preferred to work alone, but after exposure to Jamie’s apparent generosity, he attempts to be more collaborative, and they embark on a joint project, and Josh is forced to introduce Jamie to Breitbart.  Josh has always rejected his father-in-law’s attempts to advise him out of sheer determination to make his career his own.  Jamie has no such qualms; he freely borrows from others, charmingly pulling them into his circle, and making his way toward the top.

      Ever so gradually, it dawns on Josh what is happening, and he makes a scene at an inappropriate time, thinking that when he “exposes” Jamie everyone will feel just as he does.  It’s a crushing moment when it becomes obvious that no one sees anything wrong with what Jamie has done/is doing, and that even Cornelia sees him as overly suspicious.  She loves her husband, and this puts her in a bind, which she handles beautifully.

      In this sensitive part of the drama, Noah Baumbach, the writer/director, seems to be working through issues in his own mind about the nature of truth and films, particularly documentaries.  How does the filmmaker walk that fine line between being strictly truthful and ensuring that a film will be interesting, even entertaining?  Does it matter if the truth is hedged a bit or a lot if the point of the film is really about something else? 

He does make sure that the Josh character develops more insight into himself and others as a result of this painful experience, and by the end seems to be setting himself on a much more relaxed journey through life.

      Stiller and Driver have the meatier roles and play them very well.  I was sorry that the characters for the two main actresses, Watts and Seyfried, were written primarily as support for their husbands.  They are both highly talented and skilled, and it seems a waste to have them in such lackluster roles, although as usual their fine acting shows through.  Charles Grodin and Peter Yarrow in cameo roles demonstrate that age has its privileges, including professional seasoning.

      James Murphy’s score and soundtrack are truly enjoyable accompaniments to the film, particularly in its perfect pairing of the drama with sound in so many scenes. 

Overall, this is a fine update in Noah Baumbach’s career; I think his finest yet.

The best of Baumbach.

Grade:  B                          By Donna R. Copeland